


Snowflower

by Sheliak



Category: Seven Kingdoms: The Princess Problem (Visual Novel)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-16
Updated: 2019-09-16
Packaged: 2020-10-17 23:21:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,835
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20629220
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sheliak/pseuds/Sheliak
Summary: In a world where the Summit rotates between the Seven Kingdoms, Ana and Penelope meet in Skalt.





	Snowflower

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lea_hazel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lea_hazel/gifts).

Princess Anaele of Skalt was having a miserable evening.

Treaty and custom allowed her to keep a scabbard as symbol of the sword she wasn’t allowed to have at the Summit; its light weight only served to remind her of the sword she’d had to leave in her mother’s keeping, and Ana cursed her ancestors for agreeing to uphold the ban on weapons even on their own soil. 

At least this was a Skalt summit, she told herself, and she wasn’t stuck in some other kingdom, sweltering in their weather and trying to observe their confounded etiquette. But it wasn’t much comfort. 

Especially not with that Blain of Corval buzzing around her like a fly that had been turned into a man. Ana was actively ignoring him at this point; her mother would surely not require her to take him seriously, after he had so spectacularly failed to do the same for her. 

So Ana was listening to everything _but_ Blain: the polite and meaningless conversation of the foreign delegates, the stiff responses of her own warriors, the crackle of flames across the hall… the sound of an unfamiliar male voice, not speaking Skalt, loud and clearly angry. 

_Trouble._

Across the room, the Revaire heir was yelling at a clearly frightened girl. It took Ana a moment to place her as Penelope of Wellin; by then, she was already moving. As the heir of Skalt, the highest-ranking member of their delegation, she was the host here, and she was responsible for her guests—both their wellbeing and their actions. Her mother had made that very clear.

Even though it wasn’t a problem Ana could solve with her sword—or even with its empty scabbard—the idea of a fight warmed her. Her buzzing annoyance trailing behind her, she stormed across the hall. 

Jarrod was still too close to Penelope when she got there; apparently he hadn’t noticed the Skalt warrior striding towards him. So Ana put herself between them, just as she would if a Skalt woman were bullying some frightened young man. (She’d made sure, with her mother’s approval, that none of the warriors she knew to conduct themselves like that were anywhere near the Summit.) 

Of course, if this had been a Skalt matter, Ana would have had a sword to put her hand on, and she could have told the troublemaker to stay away from her victim unless she wanted to face her in a duel. 

She was still tempted. 

But the Summit was for diplomacy, not fighting. So Ana crossed her arms and said, as evenly as she could, “Surely there are other people who want to talk to you. Go find one of them.” 

She spoke his language. It might be taken as an insult—an assumption that he couldn’t speak Skalt—but she knew that some of the foreign delegates didn’t speak it well, and she wanted everyone here to know what was happening. 

Like a spoiled child who had never been denied anything he wanted, Jarrod blustered. “Do you know who I am?”

“You are the heir to Revaire. And I am the heir to Skalt. The ground we stand on will be mine, not yours, and if you break the peace here it is you who will take blame.” 

Even his bloodthirsty parents would be unhappy if he embarrassed them like that. And while they might not value Katyia’s peace, they must know that Revaire was not strong enough now to face Skalt in war. 

This fact seemed to escape Jarrod; the muscles of his chest remained tense, as if he was still holding the possibility of an attack. But Ana kept watching his body, not his face, and so she saw the moment when he noticed her warriors—moving closer, ready to act to support her if they had to—and let go of the idea of attacking her. 

Well. He was not entirely a fool, then—just mostly. 

“I must say you handled that well, Princess—” said the buzzing annoyance she had forgotten. 

It occurred to Ana that she should make sure Princess Penelope was all right, and that Lord Blain’s presence would be even less help than before. And here she had a _diplomatic_ way to get rid of him. 

“Here is Lord Blain of Corval,” she said to the Prince of Revaire. “I am sure he wants to make the acquaintance of another royal heir.” And with that, she turned around, took Princess Penelope’s hand, and led her away from the two spluttering men. 

Neither followed her. Good. 

But that was a bad situation. Prince Jarrod was young—young enough to go to a second Summit, if his parents were truly foolish. In seven years, that thoughtless, cruel man might be in her position. 

The peace would have to be strong indeed to survive that. 

But here and now, Penelope needed help. So she put Revaire and its troubles and its troublesome prince out of her mind, and gestured for the Princess of Wellin to take a seat by the fire.

* * *

“Are you all right?” Princess Anaele asked, still speaking Penelope’s own language. 

“I, yes,” she stammered. Then she pulled herself together. “Thank you so much, Princess Anaele,” she said in her best Skalt. She knew her accent wasn’t very good—there weren’t many native speakers to learn from, in Wellin—but she hoped that it wasn’t too bad to be understandable. And she knew it was more polite to speak Skalt here, with one of her hosts. 

Princess Anaele smiled at her. “I have a duty to protect my guests,” she said. Then, as if at random, “Do you know how to fight?” 

Princess Anaele probably knew the answer to that, but Penelope shook her head anyway. “No, I’ve never…” It would be direly improper, in Wellin. But that seemed rude to say to a warrior like the heir of Skalt. 

“Too bad!” She shook her head. “If there are rude people like that Prince Jarrod in Wellin, you should learn how.” 

It was improper, but… “There are,” Penelope whispered. She was surprised to hear herself speak. “But I don’t know if it would help if I could fight them.” 

“Your _etiquette_ makes a lot of trouble for you.” That one word she said in the language of the other six kingdoms, and it jangled oddly against the Skalt they were speaking. 

“Sometimes it does,” Penelope said softly.

“Then I will teach you, so you can ignore it if you need to.” 

“I think I’d like that, Princess.”

“If I am going to be your teacher, you should call me Ana.”

“In that case… Please call me Penny?” 

The Princess of Skalt grinned and patted her protectively on the head. “I will see you in a day or two, Penny. Right now, I am told I cannot stay too long with any one person. But my warriors will help you if you need them to,” she said. And while Penny was trying to figure out if Princess Ana meant help with Jarrod or in general, the Princess of Skalt was walking away. 

Penny watched her go. And then, shyly, she went to talk to one of the other Skalts. Earlier she had been intimidated by them, but if their leader was so nice, they probably could be too. And what was the Summit for, if not for making friends with people you wouldn’t normally dare approach?

* * *

Penny wasn’t surprised when she received an invitation to a combat lesson from Ana of Skalt. She _was_ surprised that she accepted it—and even more so that she enjoyed it. 

Penny would never have expected to learn to fight—even without weapons—at the Summit. But when her first lesson was over, she hugged Ana, laughing. “I never thought I could—I’m so glad I did this, that you asked me to do this!” 

And in turn, she invited Ana to come riding with her and Lisle. 

Since Ana knew the area best, she ended up leading them, saying that she wanted to show them something. Lisle and Penny followed behind on their shaggy borrowed Skalt ponies, across wide meadows and by the edge of a creek, and up to the edge of a forest. 

“Look, pretty Penny,” Ana said, and _pretty Penny_ rang in her ears so that she almost forgot to look. But when she did, she gasped in delight. 

There were flowers—great red and purple spikes—rising through the snow, on the edge of a patch of evergreen trees.

Penny left her horse with Lisle and walked over to get a better look, stumbling a bit in the snow. She wanted to pick one; but they were the wrong sort to braid, and anyway, there weren’t many of them. “I didn’t know the flowers in Skalt grew in winter!” 

“Only a few of them,” Ana said, laughing. “My sister says they grow from the roots of the trees.”

“Your sister?” Penny was curious; Ana had mentioned her mother before, but never her siblings. 

“The oldest one, who is a wisewoman now.” 

“I thought you were the oldest,” Penny said, and then blushed. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—”

“She didn’t want to be queen, or even a warrior. So I am heir instead.” Ana shrugged. “We’re both happier this way.” 

“You’re both fortunate,” Lisle said, softly. 

“Yes!” Ana laughed. “And anyway, it’s better if the queen chooses her daughters.” 

Rather than giving birth to them, she meant. Penny knew what Ana was saying, and oh, Lisle was right; Ana and her sister were both lucky, Ana most of all. 

“Yes, that would be… simpler,” Lisle said. He was good at controlling his voice; he’d had to be. 

His life would be simpler if he were allowed to just adopt a good heir, too. 

Out of old habit, Penny decided to change the subject, to give him time if he needed it. “Princess Ana, how did you know to show me these? 

“Please, just Ana! You were talking about missing flowers this morning, so I thought of them. There are usually some at this time of year, even this high up…” 

And so they spoke of safer things, on the way back.

* * *

At the end of the week, Penny watched Princess Ana stand bold in front of everyone, and say that she was here to uphold the honor of Skalt as the summit’s host—and, she added, to find a brave and pretty wife. Her eyes had met Penny’s as she said that. 

Most of the introductions after that passed in a blur; after Ana’s and aside from her brother’s , all of them blended together in her mind.

And then it was her turn. 

It was hard for her even to squeak out her name and title and country; Penny hoped that, like Lyon of Jiyel who’d gone first of all, she could get away with nothing more than that. But of course another delegate had to speak up and ask her what she was here to do. 

Penny’s head swarmed with a dozen answers she didn’t dare speak aloud. _I’m here because my brother doesn’t want me to marry the Duke, even though it’s the best thing I could do to help him in our kingdom. I’m here because he doesn’t want me to go to Revaire in seven years. I’m here because I didn’t want to be away from him. I’m here because I wanted to meet my new sister before the wedding, if he finds her here…_ She couldn’t say any of those things, and half of them seemed childish, here under everyone’s eyes.

But then she saw Princess Ana, met her determined eyes from across the room, and Penny blurted out, “I am here to keep the peace between Wellin and Skalt.” 

That seemed like enough of an answer, and with a bare moment’s pause to preserve her dignity, she fled the podium and returned to her brother’s side.

* * *

After that, Penny really shouldn’t have been surprised when Ana invited her to be a member of her crew in the boat race the next week. 

“It would be good to have you on my crew, if you want to do that.” Ana paused, as if she'd just thought of something. “If you can swim—” 

“Of course I agree! And of course I can swim,” Penny added hastily, before Ana could plan to teach her in the very cold local waters. “But—I think you should ask Princess Cordelia as well.” Penny bit her lip. “I know she’s very—very _foreign-polite_, but she knows how to sail, she told me. And those are Hise-style boats.” 

“That’s a good idea,” Ana said, a bit dubious, “but I don’t think she will agree. I can’t be _buzz buzz polite_ enough for her.” She made a face. 

“Then I’ll ask her for you!” Penny said earnestly. She knew how to be Cordelia’s sort of polite, after all. 

And maybe that was something she could do for Ana, for Skalt: talk to the other kingdoms, in a way they would understand. 

(And wasn’t she getting ahead of herself, thinking of doing things for Skalt and not for Wellin? But the world already looked very different than it had just two weeks ago.) 

“Is anyone else?” 

Penelope thought about that. Her brother, of course—but his skills were too similar to Ana’s. Earl Emmett was nice, and he’d spent time shipside, but he’d told her he wasn’t all that good at it. Cordelia’s cousin Hamin, of course, would be their opponent in the race. “Maybe Lady Avalie? She knows all kinds of things, and everyone says she accepts every invitation she’s given.” 

Of course, Penelope didn’t want to be the one to ask Avalie—Lady Avalie was scary, for all she was pretty, and polite as Cordelia herself when she felt like bothering with it—but she’d come to respect her, if not like her. 

“I will invite her, then,” Ana said. “We can write the letters together now, and send them before this morning.” 

And so it was that Penny found herself writing a very proper letter to the most proper woman ever born in Hise, requesting her assistance in the boat race on behalf of the Princess of Skalt. 

She was relieved when the invitation was accepted. And on the day of the race, both of the women she’d suggested to Ana were there; there were only two Skalts on the crew after all. 

Princess Cordelia was capable and Ana was inspiring, and the terrifying Lady Avalie was as clever as always. Penny felt terribly out of place for most of the race, without the other women’s skills, but when they began to tire she tried to cheer them up, and they managed a last burst of speed. They passed the buoys marking the finish line just before Hamin of Hise’s boat, and well ahead of the third. 

Avalie and Cordelia made their farewells, and Penny was left with her two Skalt teammates. By now her nervousness had given way to relieved elation.

“We won! I can’t believe—I didn’t make us lose!” 

“You made us win!” Ana said. She grinned. “We’re a good team.” 

And then her brother was there, thanking Ana for having her along. “I’m glad that my sister met you,” he said. There was something in his voice that Penny wasn’t sure how to interpret—relief, maybe, though she didn’t think he’d cared about the outcome of the race. 

She meant to ask him about it as they walked back to the keep. But he spoke before she could, asking her to tell him how the race had gone. Penny cheerfully launched into the story, and by the time she was done she had quite forgotten about the question.

* * *

Not long after that, Penny found herself stuck in the midst of an argument over dinner. 

She was seated between one of the Skalt women from the boat race and a Wellin lord she’d never much liked, a distant relative of her suitor the duke. The Skalt warrior tried to make conversation with Penny at first, but the lord insulted her, and after that they both ignored her in favor of their quarrel. 

Penny wanted to sink through the floor. 

The lord was openly declaring that Wellin ought to invade Skalt, and the warrior was holding her dinner knife like a dagger. This was about to turn into a real fight, and while Penelope knew that she could throw herself backwards and keep herself safe, she was horrified as well as embarrassed. This could ruin all her hopes, all her brother’s plans, and she was just listening to it happen. 

Just a few days ago she’d felt so triumphant, and now—

_I don't have to let this happen._

“Y-your behavior is a disgrace to Wellin,” she said, slowly, staring at her hands, holding them flat on the table and concentrating on their stillness. “There’s nothing proper or traditional about coming into someone’s house and starting a fight with them. Or about undercutting your Crown Prince.” 

That last made him fall silent, and Penny thought, _Oh. He was doing it on purpose, then._

She turned to the Skalt warrior. She was scary now—almost as scary as Jarrod of Revaire—but just a few days ago they’d been crew on the same ship, almost friends. And it wasn’t Penny she was angry with. “Lady Laene, please don’t judge Wellin by—by people like that. And please put your knife down. He’s not worth breaking the promises you made to Ana and your queen. He can’t be.” 

Laene still looked angry, so Penny added hastily in Skalt, “Big Sister Wolf doesn’t pay any attention to buzzing flies, does she?” 

She desperately hoped she’d gotten the reference right. (Insulting a major Skalt goddess wouldn’t help _at all._)

For a moment, she thought she had. Then Laene grinned suddenly. It made her look like Ana for a moment, and Penny wondered if they were related. “No wonder our Ana likes you! You are right, that buzz-buzz fly man would just freeze to death in real winter. Not like you!” Laene slapped her shoulder, a little too hard—but it was a gesture she’d seen the warriors make with their friends, so she grinned back and didn’t let herself flinch. The other woman switched from Skalt to the Empire’s language. “Wellin must not be that bad, if you can come from there.” 

The lord, who apparently didn’t know enough of the Skalts he so disliked to recognize a reference to one of their warrior goddesses, was still spluttering. (He wouldn’t like her, now. He’d tell the duke. A week ago, Penny would have cared about jeopardizing her plan to marry and influence him; now, she was startled to realize she didn’t care.)

(There were other ways she could help her brother. Ways that wouldn't require that kind of sacrifice.)

* * *

“Thank you,” Lisle said later that evening. “It could have been very bad, if they’d come to blows.” 

Penny thought of that knife. Blows wouldn’t have been the problem; blood would have been, and the truce would have been broken entirely. She shivered as she said, “Yes.” 

Her brother put his hand on her shoulder. “The important thing is that it didn’t happen.” He smiled at her. “You did very well. Coming here has been good for you.”

“And Princess Ana,” she said. And then, “Lisle—I think I want to stay here. If Ana wants me to.” With her, as her wife, she didn’t say. In Wellin, that would have been dangerous; here, she was so used to leaving things unsaid for his sake… And it seemed cruel, to say for herself what she had to leave silent for him. 

“Penny, I’m happy for you. I’m glad one of us can follow their heart.” 

“Even though—“ 

“Especially.” He took her hand, and she hugged him so that she wouldn’t have to see the sheen in his eyes.

* * *

The day after that, Penny went out early to explore the gray rock beach. Tide was out, though the jagged rocks were still slippery, and she had to be careful where she stepped. 

It was a little scary, even with the Skalt boots she was wearing; sometimes she slipped and had to catch herself. 

Last year she would never have done this. But learning courage took effort, and it was something she was glad to be doing. 

She was concentrating so hard that it took her a long time to notice the Princess of Skalt, sitting on a rock not far away. She looked as if she had been there a little while. 

“Were you looking for me, Ana?”

“Of course! I wish I could be looking for you all the time, pretty Penny. But I must be patient and diplomatic and put up with the stuffy stiff buzzing-fly men.” She waved a hand. “It is only a few weeks. I can do this, I am strong. But today I take for myself to be with you.” She stood and walked beside her, dancing a bit, enjoying the challenge. 

After a while she said, “Are you glad you came here?”

“Of course I am! If I hadn’t come here, I would never have met you. And… before I came here, I never thought I could be so brave.” 

“And it is good that you have learned this!” Ana laughed as she danced over the slippery rocks. “You are braver than you thought you were, and you will be braver still.”

That confidence warmed Penny as much as Ana calling her pretty did. “What about you? Are you glad to be here?”

“If the Summit had been somewhere else, I would have wanted to go. But because it is here, in Skalt, I have to be here also. The heir to Skalt has a duty to do that, to show our strength and to keep the peace. 

“And I am glad to meet you, so I am glad I came. 

“It is the same for you. You are glad to be here, you are glad to be with me. But it has also been duty, yes? You must do this for Wellin, for peace, to help your brother. And I for Skalt and my mother. But we have our own lives too. Our own happiness. And when we can take chances for ourselves, to be happy, we should. The world is not giving second chances, pretty Penny.

“I know you aren’t used to people talking to you like that. But just because you aren’t used to people saying that doesn’t mean it’s not true. I mean it when I say that you’re pretty. And I mean what I’m saying now.”

“I am asking you to stay here in Skalt, to marry me. I know it would be strange for you. And I know that for you it is also a choice about duty, because things are so bad between our countries. But I think you could be very happy here with me, and that I would be very happy with you. If that is also what you want.” 

“Of course I do! And it’s not—it’s not for the peace, Ana. Or it is, a bit, but—I would want to marry you anyway, and if I didn’t want to marry you, I’d try to find some other way. I _want_ to stay here with you, as your wife. I love you.”

Penny stopped then, overwhelmed by her own daring. She would never have dared to say anything like that in Wellin; she would never have dreamed she would say it anywhere.

“And I am full of gladness that it is so, pretty Penny! But now, I think we should make our way back. The buzzing stiff people will look for us if we are not at lunch.” 

And so they walked back to the keep together, hand in hand.

* * *

Nearly a week after the boat race, Ana met Prince Lisle on the edge of the sea, not far from where she and Penny had talked. 

“Princess Anaele,” he said. “I was hoping to speak to you.” 

He spoke Skalt, but he spoke it like a foreign noble, stiff and awkward. Ana replied in his own language. “We can go back to the keep together.”

“Later, maybe.” 

So. He didn’t want anyone else to hear. That could be reasonable; when the heirs of two nations on the edge of war spoke, too many people listened. Ana sat down on a convenient rock. “Then talk here.” 

If he was the man she thought he was—the man Penny thought he was—he would not be insulted. 

“My sister has told me that she intends to marry you, and I wanted to tell you that I will do everything I can, as her brother and as the Prince of Wellin, help you both.” He paused. “There are many in Wellin who will not be happy. But our parents and the ambassadors will listen to me when I tell them it is the best choice for Wellin. And I wanted you to know that I also know it is the best choice for her. 

“I asked Penelope to come here so that she would know a little more of the world before she made her choices. That’s all I wanted for her. But… she’s blossomed in Skalt. With you.” He looked out towards the water, so that she couldn’t see his face as he continued. “And I wanted _one_ of us to have a chance of marrying as their heart wanted. I’m glad she met you.” Very softly, as if he was afraid of being overheard, he added, “Part of me wishes I could stay here as well.”

Ana thought she knew what Lisle and Penny had both been so carefully avoiding saying, all this time. “It must be…. Very hard. Outside of Skalt.” Normally Ana felt comfortable in the foreign language, enough to mix and match her words together the way she would in her own. So what if it made some people think she was stupid? If they were silly enough to make that mistake, let them underestimate her. But now, she felt tongue-tied, trying to imply without saying. 

Stupid foreign _etiquette,_ keeping her from being honest and straightforward, from reaching out to this man who was going to be her brother, who might have been her friend. 

But Lisle seemed to understand her, and he answered in her own language. “Yes. It is.” 

It was hard to say anything, so for a long time they stayed silent as the air grew chill, watching the dark water. 

“News does not travel fast or far from Skalt,” Ana said after a long while. “You can be honest there, and everyone else will just think we are barbarians.” As usual. Let it be useful for once. 

“Even in Skalt, I don’t think I can be… entirely honest… for a long time. But once my heir is grown, when I’m no longer king… perhaps then.” 

There were a lot of “maybes” in that “when”, and Ana knew that Lisle might never decide that things were stable enough in his own country to take her up on the offer. 

But the Prince of Wellin offered her a warrior’s handclasp in farewell, hand to wrist, and she accepted.

* * *

It was harder than it should have been, to win approval for the marriage of a princess of one country to the heir of another. That, more than anything, told Penny how very close to war Skalt and Wellin had been. 

But Penny had impressed the Skalt delegates in the boat race, and again when she had stopped the fight between Lady Laene and the Wellin lord; Penny’s presence at the race had even endeared Ana to Wellin, just a bit. And Lisle was as good as his word too, pointing out the advantages to Wellin and making it clear that he thought this should happen. 

The ambassadors might think that Penelope was making a sacrifice for politics, and that bothered her a little—but let them. It didn’t matter if they never knew better. 

So they were married, at the end of the seventh week, in the Skalt way, only adding the god of Penny’s people to the list of those they asked to bless them. It was a little frightening—it made this real, and she knew how strange this new life would be, how hard it would be at first. 

Let it be hard. She could do it; she knew that, now. 

After the ceremony she embraced her brother and wept, and promised to write. (Most people in Skalt didn’t, but a princess—and a princess’s wife—could arrange some things.) And then—after watching the boats leave, waving until they were out of sight—she went with Ana and her warriors, and the new wife Lady Laene had married, towards her new life.


End file.
